A liquid crystal display device generally includes a liquid crystal cell and a pair of polarizing plates (i.e., an incident-side polarizing plate and an emission-side polarizing plate) disposed so as to sandwich the liquid crystal cell. In a general liquid crystal display mode such as a VA mode or an IPS mode, the pair of polarizing plates are usually disposed such that their absorption axes are orthogonal to each other. Usually, such a liquid crystal display device displays black color in the absence of an electric field. When black color is displayed, light transmission is blocked.
In some cases, an optical compensation film is provided in the liquid crystal display device to optically compensate such a liquid crystal display device. One example of such an optical compensation film is a layered phase difference film including two or more laminated phase difference films having different retardations (see Patent Literature 1).
However, manufacturing of the layered phase difference film produced by laminating the phase difference films is complicated. Specifically, e.g., the step of adjusting the relationship between the in-plane slow axes of the phase difference films to be laminated and the step of laminating the phase difference films onto each other are necessary, so that the number of steps necessary for the production tends to become large.
Addressing to this issue, there is proposed a method wherein co-stretching is employed for simplifying the production. Examples of this method may include a method including: preparing a layered body including a plurality of layers formed of different materials; and stretching the layered body under appropriate conditions (Patent Literatures 2 and 3).